


Stand By Me

by Arya Evanstan (BlackKryptonite)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Friendship, Gen, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 00:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19712686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackKryptonite/pseuds/Arya%20Evanstan
Summary: Draco Malfoy makes an unexpected friend.(This is a terrible description, please read this anyway, I have good grammar at least. Also, it’s not Dramione, they’re just friends, there will be Drarry later)





	Stand By Me

**Author's Note:**

> I liked this idea and I went with it, I don’t even know if it’s good...
> 
> The prologue is set at hogwarts, but I want to write the main story for a few years later. 
> 
> If I write more, the rest of the work won’t be like the prologue, the prologue is basically just background information that I want to build off of.
> 
> Please leave kudos, I live on praise and I don’t want to die anytime soon.
> 
> Anyway, I hope someone likes this!

It’s not as if Draco hadn’t expected this, he knew there’d be people who blamed him, hated him, after what had happened. When he’d decided to come back to Hogwarts to redo his seventh year he had done so expecting this. 

What he hadn’t expected was for someone to help him, especially someone he’d been so awful to as Granger. Nevertheless, when two burly sixth years had cornered him before he could make it to his arithmancy class, Granger had been the only person to come to his rescue. 

She’d smiled at him, offered a hand to get him up off the floor, and proceeded to sit with him in the class that they shared. 

Later, when Draco had frowned and said, “I don’t want your pity, Granger.”

Hermione had just smiled again and replied, “this isn’t pity, I just know what it’s like to be on the outside, and I know what’s it’s like to be hated for something beyond my control. This isn’t pity, Draco, this is empathy.”

And Draco hadn’t known what surprised him more, the fact that she had used his first name as if it was an easy, familiar thing, or that she didn’t blame him for what he had done. 

After that, a friendship blossomed between them.  
It was small at first, built on moments when Hermione wasn’t with the other two in her trio, moments when they sat together in the library studying in silence, or in the two classes they took together that Potter and Weasley didn’t. 

But after a few weeks, Hermione started to invite Draco to sit with them at lunch, or accompany them to Hogsmeade in the weekends. 

At first, Draco could tell that Weasley and Potter had only agreed to him coming as a favour to Hermione, but they slowly changed their minds, allowing him into their group. 

Hermione was always the one who initiated things, Draco always accepted but he never asked to come, even after Hermione defended him in front of other students or smiled and helped him with his homework, Draco couldn’t shake the feeling that this couldn’t last, that it was a trick and at any moment someone would laugh and say, “You didn’t really believe that she would forgive you, did you? Of course she blames you! We all do.” 

But it never happened, and that feeling started to fade away. 

It became easy, they would leave an empty seat at the Gryffindor table, between Hermione and Neville and across from Potter and the Weasleys, and Draco began to automatically sit down with them. 

They’d sit together in classes and walk together between them, Hermione and Draco shared all the same classes so they stuck together almost always. 

Afterwards, they’d all go up to the special dormitory, set up for the eighth year student, and sit around the fireplace, drinking butterbeer and playing chess. 

On one of those nights, with Draco and Hermione sat together, legs crossed on the soft carpet, watching Weasley and Potter’s fourth chess match, Draco had looked over at Hermione and said quietly, “Thank you, Granger.”

And Hermione had just smiled at him, like she had that first day when their friendship began, and Draco knew in that moment that this was the first real friendship he had ever had. 

Because, despite everything he had done, Hermione was still there, smiling at him like everything was just as it was supposed to be.


End file.
